Nuclear ScienceA Teachers Guide to the Nuclear Science Wall Chart

1998 Contemporary Physics Education Project (CPEP)

4-1
Chapter 4 Four Fundamental Interactions
The forces of gravity and electromagnetism are familiar in everyday life. Two new
forces are introduced when discussing nuclear phenomena: the strong and weak
interactions. When two protons encounter each other, they experience all four of the
fundamental forces of nature simultaneously. The weak force governs beta decay and
neutrino interactions with nuclei. The strong force, which we generally call the nuclear
force, is actually the force that binds quarks together to form baryons (3 quarks) and
mesons (a quark and an anti-quark). The nucleons of everyday matter, neutrons and
protons, consist of the quark combinations uud and udd, respectively. The symbol u
represents a single up quark, while the symbol d represents a single down quark.
The force that holds nucleons together to form an atomic nucleus can be thought to
be a residual interaction between quarks inside each individual nucleon. This is analogous
to what happens in a molecule. The electrons in an atom are bound to its nucleus by
electromagnetism: when two atoms are relatively near, there is a residual interaction
between the electron clouds that can form a covalent bond. The nucleus can thus be thought
of as a strong force molecule.
The force between two objects can be described as the exchange of a particle. The
exchange particle transfers momentum and energy between the two objects, and is said to
mediate the interaction. A simple analogue of this is a ball being thrown back and forth
between two people. The momentum imparted to the ball by one person gets transferred to
the other person when she catches the ball.
The potential energy associated with each force acting between two protons is
characterized by both the strength of the interaction and the range over which the interaction
takes place. In each case the strength is determined by a coupling constant, and the range is
Table 4-1. Strength and range of the four fundamental forces between two protons. Note that the strong
force acts between quarks by an exchange of gluons. The residual strong force between two protons can be
described by the exchange of a neutral pion. Note, the W

is not included as an exchange particle for the
weak interaction because it is not exchanged in the simplest proton-proton interaction.
Interaction Gravity Weak Electro-
magnetism
Strong
Residual
Exchange particle Graviton Z
0
Photon Pion
Mass
mc
2
(eV)
0 91x10
9
0 135 x 10
6
Coupling constant
C
2
(J m)
1.87x10
-64
3.22x10
-31
2.31x10
-28
2.5 x10
-27
Range
( m)
2 x 10
-18
1.5 x 10
-15
Chapter 4Four Fundamental Interactions
4-2
characterized by the mass of the exchanged particle. The potential energy, U, between two
protons a distance r apart is written as
( ) U
C
r
r R =
2
exp /
,
where R is the range of the interaction, and C
2
, is the strength of the interaction. In each
case the interaction is due to the exchange of some particle whose mass determined the
range of the interaction, R = h/mc. The exchanged particle is said to mediate the interaction.
Table 4-1 shows a comparison between the coupling constants and ranges of the
four forces acting between two protons. Although the graviton has not yet been observed,
it is thought that there is an exchange particle associated with gravity and that eventually
gravity will be described in a unified theory with the other three forces of nature.
Fig. 4-1. A representation of the strong force. Depending on the complexity of the problem, scientists use
different formulations.
The range of the gravitational and electromagnetic forces is infinite, while that of the
strong and weak forces is very short. Also, the strength of the interaction depends on the
separation between the two protons. Both gravitation and electromagnetism are of infinite
range and their strengths decrease as the separation, r, increasesfalling off as 1/r
2
. On the
Chapter 4Four Fundamental Interactions
4-3
other hand, because the exchange particles for the strong and weak forces have a large
mass, the force associated with them is zero outside of a short range.
Note that the strong force between two protons is a residual interaction. The quarks
inside the nucleons interact through the exchange of gluons that carry a quantum number
called color (i.e., a color-neutral object does not feel the strong force, like an
electrically neutral object does not feel electromagnetism). Figure 4-1 shows three different
ways that the strong force can be viewed.
The theory of strong interactions among quarks and gluons is called Quantum
Chromodynamics (QCD). A very successful model of describing this residual force is by
the exchange of the (pi) meson, or pion. This description, dating back to the work of
Yukawa in the 1930s, works extremely well except at very short distances, and is generally
used to describe most of the properties of complex nuclei. Exactly at what distance inside
the nucleus, or correspondingly at what values of momentum transferred between the
nucleons, the pion exchange model breaks down is the subject of much current research in
nuclear physics. It is presently thought that this transition occurs somewhere around
momentum transfers of 1 GeV/c.
Books and Articles:
James OConnell, Comparison of the Four Fundamental Interactions of Physics, The
Physics Teacher 36, 27 (1998).
Richard A. Carrigan and W. Petter Trower (Ed.), Particles and Forces: At the Heart of
Matter: Readings from Scientific American Magazine, W.H. Freeman Co., 1989.